If the Republicans are going to win control of the U.S. Senate, they’re going to need to run the table and beat almost every vulnerable Democrat. One such seat is held by maverick Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold. Feingold has a fairly liberal voting record, but he has proved that he can work across the aisle, as he and Republican John McCain forged the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, parts of which were invalidated in the Citizens United v. FEC case earlier this year.

Still, in this red year, the relatively popular senator may lose to Republican Ron Johnson, an Oshkosh businessman who began the company Pacur. In mid-September, political handicapper Nate Silver of the New York Times rated Feingold’s chances of winning at 67%, but in recent weeks Johnson has pulled ahead and is now tabbed as a nearly 90% favorite to win the seats, with leads running at as much as 12% in some polls (though the Rasmussen poll that puts Johnson’s lead often has a house Republican bias).

What follows are two ads, one from Feingold, which attacks Johnson in one of those “In His Words” clips that tries to paint Johnson as a liar. Johnson has claimed that he hasn’t lobbied for government funds for his business, but Feingold’s ad details the $4 million government aid Pacur received to expand its business. It goes on to say that Johnson likes to claim that government doesn’t create jobs, “but in the case of his own business, that doesn’t seem to be true.” (Here is Feingold’s press release on the ad, and here is Fact Check’s analysis of the ad, which it finds hits the same tone as the news stories but is misleading in the amount of assistance Johnson’s firm received.)

In Johnson’s ad, titled 57, it makes a simple argument: there are 57 lawyers in the Senate (Feingold is one), and that’s too many, particularly since we don’t need to win a lawsuit, we need to right an economy. As Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post says of this effective ad: “The takeaway from the ad is unmistakable: Ron Johnson is different. And being different is a very good thing to be in an election cycle like this one.”

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Through election day on November 2, I’ll present some of the ads from the campaign trail to give our readers some insight into what their fellow Americans are seeing around the country. If you have a video suggestion, please message me via Twitter.